Dat's why Granny keeps her money under the mattress an' inna cookie jar...Citigroup hacked: What to do if your account was compromisedJune 9, 2011 - Some 200,000 of Citigroup's bankcard customers had their accounts hacked. Most won't be responsible for fraudulent purchases, but cardholders should still take precautions.

Almost everyone has received US mail that comes in with a banks return address on the left-hand corner. You might not want to throw it all in the trash, particularly if you have a Citigroup issued credit card. The big bank says it is in the process of notifying more than 200,000 of its bankcard customers  some 1 percent of its total cardholders  who had their accounts hacked, probably in early May when the bank discovered someone was accessing names, account numbers, and contact information, including e-mail addresses. The majority of its customers will receive new credit cards and are not responsible for any fraudulent purchases, says Citigroup spokesman Sean Kevelighan.

The data breach is the latest in a recent series of major intrusions into the computers of companies such as Sony, bulk mailer Epsilon, and RSA, which provides SecureID tokens for Internet security. Security experts say the intrusions show that the hackers are getting more sophisticated and harder to immediately detect since many of the companies had fairly sophisticated systems. I am afraid they are going to be more successful in the short term in seizing assets and information and disrupting business, says Larry Poneomon, head of the Poneomon Institute in Traverse City, Mich. It is a fait accompli.

In an annual study, sponsored by Symantec, a computer security company, the Institute found the cost of computer intrusions was $214 per compromised record. If the breach included information such as lost Social Security numbers or personal identification numbers, it cost $353 per record. Probably, one of the most expensive breaches was the 2005 data break-in at TJX Corporation, the parent of T.J. Maxx, the discount retailer. Cyberthieves stole 46.5 records, including a lot of credit card information. The company says the theft cost it about $160 million through its fourth quarter.

Chase Visa's Fraud Division called me on Monday and asked if I had made three specific purchases totaling $248 on Sunday. I had not. So they canceled my existing card number and sent me a new card, which I received today.

Lulz at it again...Continued cyber attacks expose network weaknessesFri, Jun 17, 2011 - A hacker group was brazenly ramping up its antics as waves of cyber attacks targeting even the US spy agency to expose how poorly defended many networks are against Internet marauders.

Its becoming a big problem, because at the end of the day these guys are doing whatever they want, Panda computer security labs technical director Luis Corrons said. This is showing us that we have a long way to go to protect our systems and our information. The public Web site of the US CIA on Wednesday joined a growing list of hacker targets that has included Sony, the IMF and Citibank. The CIA said it was looking into reports that cia.gov was knocked offline temporarily by a hacker group calling itself Lulz Security.

Lulz has claimed in recent weeks to have cracked into Sony, Nintendo, the US Senate, the Public Broadcasting System news organization and an Infragard company that works with the FBI. The group is flaunting its notoriety with a telephone hotline for people to call and suggest targets for cyber attacks. Our number literally has anywhere between five and 20 people ringing it every single second, members of the group said in a message on their @LulzSec Twitter account.

We can forward it anywhere in the world, they continued in a string of tweets that suggested they were using the flood of calls to jam phone lines of companies in telephone versions of Internet denial of service attacks. Videogame companies appear to be favored targets for the group, prompting some in the computer security industry to believe its members are young people up to antics rather than cyber crooks out for loot. The hotline number spelled out LULZSEC and had an area code in the US state of Ohio.

Millions of copiers and printers in thousands of companies worldwide are ripe targets for cyberthieves in the hunt for sensitive business documents. Researchers from Web security firm Zscaler ran a simple search and easily located 118,194 Hewlett-Packard printer-scanners, 9,431 Cannon photocopiers and 3,554 D-Link webcams equipped as Internet-connected Web servers. Any intruder could do the same thing, then take over control of devices protected by weak passwords, says Michael Sutton, Zscaler's vice president of research. The intruder could then steal images of documents stored in a copier's memory or take control of webcams placed inside a work area.

"I'd be surprised if attackers weren't already taking advantage," says Sutton, who released the findings Thursday at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference here. "They'd be foolish not to. It's just too easy." Web server software today gets built into most printers, scanners, photocopiers, webcams, DVRs and other common workplace equipment. This is done to make it easy for technicians to troubleshoot the devices and change settings over the Internet. "It's a much more convenient approach," says Sutton. "The problem occurs when such servers are enabled by default and either not password protected or protected only by a common default password."

Yet, many companies aren't bothering to lock down server software in commonplace office appliances. Zscaler also easily located 436,947 Cisco routers, switches and other networking appliances equipped as rudimentary Web servers. An intruder taking control of a Cisco device could monitor and even redirect network traffic, gaining prime position deep inside an organization's network to steal authentication log-ons and proprietary documents. Much attention at the Black Hat conference here is being paid to escalating attacks to steal intellectual property. A new approach is needed that focuses on identifying and locking down an organization's most valuable assets, says Eddie Schwartz, chief security officer of RSA, the cybersecurity unit of EMC.

Earlier this year, RSA disclosed that hackers infiltrated its network to steal the technology for SecurID tokens that issue one-time pass codes. SecureID is used widely by companies and governments to restrict access to sensitive systems. "We're living in a compromised world surrounded by advanced threats," say Schwartz. "Our security model has to become more information-centric." Some simple protection measures that companies can take include identifying and regularly auditing printers, routers and other appliances equipped as Web servers. Unused functions should be disabled, and strong passwords put in place, Sutton says.

The group known as Anonymous says it has hacked some 70 law enforcement websites across the southern and central United States in retaliation for the arrests of its sympathizers in the U.S. and Britain.

The hacking group also claims to have stolen 10 gigabytes of data, including emails, credit card details, and other information from local law enforcement bodies.

Anonymous' claims couldn't all be immediately verified, but a review of the sites it claims to have targeted  mainly sheriffs' offices in states such as Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Mississippi  showed that most were unavailable or had been wiped clean of content.

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